AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 



•NOERNING THE WRITING 
OF HISTORY. 



BY 



JAMES FORD RHODES, LL. D. 



•Vom the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1900, 

Vol. I, pages 49-65.) 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
1 9 1 . 






FEB 3 19 
D, of D, 



• ! • •• ! • • 



• • • • •• 

••• ••••• 









AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 



CONCERNING THE WRITING 
OF HISTORY. 



BY 



JAMES FORD RHODES, LL. D. 



(From the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1900, 

Vol. I, pages 49-05.) 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
1901. 



Ill— CONCERNING THE WRITING OF HISTORY. 



By JAMES FORD RHODES, LL. D. 



H. Doc. 548, pt 1 4 49 



CONCERNING THE WRITING OF HISTORY. 



By James Ford Rhodes, LL. D. 



Called on at the last moment, owing to the illness of Mr. 
Eggleston, to supply in a measure a place which can not be 
filled, I present to you a paper on the writing of history. It 
is in a way a continuance of nry inaugural address before this 
association one year ago, and despite the continuity of the 
thought I have endeavored to treat the same subject from a 
different point of view. While going over the same ground 
and drawing my lessons from the same historians, it is new 
matter so far as I have had the honor to present it to the 
American Historical Association. 

An historian, to make a mark, must show T some originality 
somewhere in his work. The originality may be in a method 
of investigation; it may be in the use of some hitherto inac- 
cessible or unprinted material; it may be in the employment 
of some sources of information open to everybody, but not 
before used, or it may be in a fresh combination of well- 
known and well-elaborated facts. It is this last-named feature 
that leads Mr. Winsor to say, in speaking of the different 
views that may be honestly maintained from working over the 
same material, "The study of history is perennial." I think 
I can make my meaning clearer as to the originalitj'' one should 
try to infuse into historical work by drawing an illustration 
from the advice of a literary man as to the art of writing. 
Charles Dudley Warner once said to me, "Everyone who 
writes should have something to add to the world's stock of 
knowledge or literary expression. If he falls unconsciously 
into imitation or quotation, he takes away from his originality. 
No matter if some great writer has expressed the thought in 
better language than you can use, if }^ou take his words you 
detract from your own originality. Express j^our thought 

51 



52 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

feebly in your own way rather than with strength by borrow- 
ing the words of another." 

This same principle in the art of authorship may be applied 
to the art of writing history. "Follow your own star, " said 
Emerson, "and it will lead you to that which none other can 
attain. Imitation is suicide. You must take yourself for 
better or worse as your own portion." If one is led to the 
writing of history, he may be sure that there is in him some 
originality, that he can add something to the knowledge of 
some period. Let him give himself to meditation, to search- 
ing out what epoch and what kind of treatment of that epoch 
is best adapted to his powers and to his training. I mean not 
only the collegiate training, but the sort of training one gets 
consciously or unconsciously from the very circumstances 
of one's life. In the persistence of thinking, his subject will 
flash upon him. Parkman, said Lowell, showed genius in the 
choice of his subject. The recent biography of Parkman em- 
phasizes the idea which we get from his works — that only a 
man who lived in the virgin forests of this country and loved 
them, who had traveled in the far West as a pioneer, with In- 
dians for companions, could have done that work. Parkman\s 
experience can not be had by anyone again, and he brought 
to bear the wealth of it in that fifty years' occupation of his. 
Critics of exact knowledge — such as Justin Winsor, for in- 
stance — find limitations in Parkman's books that may impair 
the permanence of his fame, but I suspect that his is the only 
work in American history that can not and will not lie written 
over again. The reason of it is that he had a unique life 
which has permeated his narrative, giving it the stamp of 
originality. No man whose training was that had alone in the 
best schools of Germany, France, or England could have 
written those books. A training racy of the soil was needed. 
"A practical knowledge," wrote Niebuhr, "must support his- 
torical jurisprudence, and if anyone has got that he can easily 
master all scholastic speculations." A man's knowledge of 
everyday life in some way fits him for a certain field of his- 
torical study — in that field lies success. In seeking a period, 
no American need confine himself to his own country. 
"European history for Americans," said Motley, "has to be 
almost entirely rewritten." 

I shall touch upon only two of the headings of historical 



CONCERNING THE WRITING OF HISTORY. 53 

originality which I have mentioned. The first that I shall 
speak of is the employment of some sources of information 
open to everybody, but not before used. A significant case of 
this in American history is the use which Doctor Von Hoist 
made of newspaper material. Niles's Register, a lot of news- 
paper cuttings, as well as speeches and state papers in a compact 
form, had, of course, been referred to by many writers who 
dealt with the period they covered, but in the part of his his- 
tory covering from 1850 to 1860 Von Hoist made an extensive 
and varied employment of newspapers by studying the news- 
paper files themselves. As the aim of history is truth, and as 
newspapers fail sadly in accuracy, it is not surprising that 
many historical students believe that the examination of news- 
papers for any given period will not pay for the labor and 
drudgery involved; but the fact that a trained German histor- 
ical scholar and teacher at a German university should have 
found, when he came to write the history of our own country, 
some truth in our newspaper files gives to their use for that 
period the seal of scientific approval. Doctor Von Hoist used 
this material with pertinence and effect; his touch was nice. 
I used to wonder at his knowledge of the newspaper world, 
of the men who made and wrote our journals, until he told me 
that when he first came to this country one of his methods in 
gaining a knowledge of English was to read the advertise- 
ments in the newspapers. Reflection will show one what a 
picture of the life of a people this, in addition to the news 
columns, must be. 

No one, of course, will go to newspapers for facts if he can 
find those facts in better attested documents. The haste with 
which the daily records of the world's doings are made up 
precludes sifting and revision. Yet in the decade between 
1850 and 1860 you will find facts in the newspapers nowhere 
else set down. Public men of commanding position were fond 
of writing letters to the journals with a view of influencing 
public sentiment. These letters in the newspapers are as 
valuable historical material as if they were carefully collected, 
edited, and published in the form of books. Men made 
speeches that one must read which he will nowhere find 
except in the journals. The immortal debates of Lincoln and 
Douglas in 1858 were never put into a book until 1860, exist- 
ing previously only in newspaper print. Newspapers are 



54 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

sometimes important in fixing a date and in establishing the 
whereabouts of a man. If, for example, a writer draws a 
fruitful inference from the alleged fact that President Lin- 
coln went to see Edwin Booth pla}^ Hamlet in Washington in 
February, 1863, and if one finds by a consultation of the news- 
paper theatrical advertisements that Edwin Booth did not 
visit Washington during that month, the significance of the 
inference is destroyed. Lincoln paid General Scott a memo- 
rable visit at West Point in June, 1862. You may, if I 
remember correctly, search the books in vain to get at the 
exact date of this visit; but turn to the newspaper files and 
3^011 find that the President left Washington at such an hour on 
such a day, arrived at Jersey City at a stated time, and made 
the transfer to the other railroad which took him to the station 
opposite West Point. The time of his leaving West Point 
and the hour of his return to Washington are also given. 

The value of newspapers as an indication of public senti- 
ment is sometimes questioned, but it can hardly be doubted 
that the average man will read the newspaper with the senti- 
ments of which he agrees. " I inquired about newspaper 
opinion," said Joseph Chamberlain in the House of Commons 
last May. "I knew no other way of getting at popular 
opinion." During the 3'ears between 1851 and 1860 the daily 
journals were a pretty good reflection of public sentiment in 
the United States. Wherever, for instance, you found the 
New York Weekly Tribune largely read, Republican majori- 
ties were sure to be had when election day came. For fact 
and for opinion, if you knew the contributors, statements 
and editorials by them were entitled to as much weight as 
similar public expressions in any other form. You get to 
know Greeley and you learn to recognize his style. Now, an 
editorial from him is proper historical material, taking into 
account always the circumstances under which he wrote. 
The same may be said of Dana and of Hildreth, both editorial 
writers for the Tribune, and of the Washington dispatches of 
J. S. Pike. It is interesting to compare the public letters 
of Greeley to the Tribune from Washington in 1856 with his 
private letters at the same time to Dana. There are no mis- 
statements in the public letters, but there is a suppression of 
the truth. The explanations in the private correspondence 
are clearer, and you need them to know fully how affairs 



CONCERNING THE WRITING OF HISTORY. 55 

looked in Washington to Greeley at the time; but that fact 
by no means detracts from the value of the public letters as 
historical material. I have found newspapers of greater 
value both for fact and opinion during the decade of 1850 to 
1860 than for the period of the civil war. A comparison of 
the newspaper accounts of battles with the histoiy of them 
which may be drawn from the correspondence and reports in 
the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion will show 
how inaccurate and misleading was the war correspondence 
of the dail} T journals. It could not well be otherwise. The 
correspondent was obliged in haste to write the story of a 
battle of which he saw but a small section, and instead of 
telling the little part which he knew actually, he had to give 
to a public greedy for news a complete survey of the whole 
battlefield. This story was too often colored by his liking 
or aversion for the generals in command. A study of the 
confidential historical material of the civil war, apart from 
the military operations, in comparison with the journalistic 
accounts, gives one a higher idea of the accuracy and 
shrewdness of the newspaper correspondents. Few impor- 
tant things were brewing at Washington of which they did 
not get an inkling. But I always like to think of two signal 
exceptions. Nothing ever leaked out in regard to the famous 
"Thoughts for the President's consideration," which Seward 
submitted to Lincoln in March, 1861, and only very incorrect 
guesses of the President's first emancipation proclamation, 
brought before his Cabinet in July, 1862, got into newspaper 
print. 

Beware of hasty, strained, and imperfect generalizations. 
An historian should always remember that he is a sort of 
trustee for his readers. No matter how copious may be his 
notes, he can not fully explain his processes or the reason of 
his confidence in one witness and not in another, his belief in 
one honest man against a half dozen untrustworthy men, with- 
out such prolixity as to make a general history unreadable. 
Now, in this position as trustee he is bound to assert nothing 
for which he has not evidence, as much as an executor of a 
will or the trustee for widows and orphans is obligated to ren- 
der a correct account of the moneys in his possession. For 
this reason Grote has said, "An historian is bound to produce 
the materials upon which he builds, be they never so fantastic, 



56 AMEKICAlSr HISTOEICAL ASSOCIATION. 

absurd, or incredible." Hence the necessity for footnotes. 
While mere illustrative and interesting footnotes are perhaps 
to be avoided, on account of their redundancy, those which 
give authority for the statements in the text can never be in 
excess. Many good histories have undoubtedly been pub- 
lished where the authors have not printed their footnotes; 
but they must have had, nevertheless, precise records for 
their authorities. The advantage and necessity of printing 
the notes is that you furnish your critic an opportunity of 
finding you out if you have mistaken or strained your author- 
ities. Bancroft's example is peculiar. In his earlier vol- 
umes he used footnotes, but in volume 7 he changed his 
plan and omitted notes, whether of reference or explanation. 
Nor do j^ou find them in either of his carefully revised edi- 
tions. Bancroft himself did not, I believe, make in writing 
any explanation of this change, but I have been informed 
that he stated in conversation that as very much of his material 
was manuscript to which he alone had had access, and writers 
on the same subject used his notes without giving him due 
credit, he had come to the conclusion that he would not pub- 
lish his sources to the world. Again, Blaine's Twenty Years 
of Congress, a work which, properly weighed, is not with- 
out historical value, is only to be read with great care on ac- 
count of his hasty and inaccurate generalizations. There are 
evidences of good, honest labor in those two volumes, much 
of which must have been done by himself. There is an aim 
at truth and impartiality, but many of his general statements 
will seem, to anyone who has gone over the original material, 
to rest on a slight basis. If Blaine had felt the necessity of 
giving authorities in a footnote for every statement about 
which there might have been a question, he certainty would 
have written an entirety different sort of a book. 

My other head is the originality which comes from a fresh 
combination of known historical facts. 

I do not now call to mind any more notable chapter which 
illustrates this than the chapter of Curtius, "The years of 
peace." One is perhaps better adapted for the keen enjoj^- 
ment of it if he does not know the original material, for his 
suspicion that some of the inferences are strained and unwar- 
ranted might become a certainty. But accepting it as the 
mature and honest elaboration of one of the greatest historians 



CONCERNING THE WRITING OF HISTORY. 57 

of Greece of our day, it is a sample of the vivifying of dry 
bones and of a dovetailing* of facts and ideas that makes a 
narrative to charm and instruct. One feels that the spirit of 
that age we all like to think and dream about is there, and if 
one has been so fortunate as to visit the Athens of to-day, 
that chapter, so great is the author's constructive imagination, 
carries you back and makes you for the moment live in the 
Athens of Pericles, of Sophocles, of Phidias and Herodotus. 
With the abundance of materials for modern history, and, 
for that reason, our tendency to diffuseness, nothing is so 
important as a thorough acquaintance with the best classic 
models, such as Herodotus, Thucydides, and Tacitus. In 
Herodotus you have an example of an interesting stoiy with 
the unity of the narrative well sustained in spite of certain 
unnecessary digressions. His book is obviously a life work 
and the work of a man who had an extensive knowledge 
gained by reading, society, and travel, and who brought his 
knowledge to bear upon his chosen task. That the history is 
interesting all admit, but in different periods of criticism 
stress is sometimes laid on the untrustworthy character of the 
narrative, with the result that there has been danger of strik- 
ing Herodotus from the list of historical models; but such is 
the merit of his work that the Herodotus cult again revives, 
and, I take it, is now at its acme. I received, three years ago, 
while in Egypt, a vivid impression of him whom we used to 
style the Father of History- Spending the day at the great 
Pyramids, when, after one has satisfied his first curiosity, after 
one has filled his eyes and mind with the novelty of the spec- 
tacle, nothing is so gratifying to the historic sense as to gaze 
on those most wonderful monuments of human industry, con- 
structed certainly 5,000 years ago, and to read at the same 
time the account that Herodotus gave of his visit there 2,360 
years before the present year of our Lord. That night I 
read in a modern and garish Cairo hotel the current number 
of the London Times. In it was an account of an annual 
meeting of the Royal Historical Society and a report of a 
formal and carefully prepared address of its president, whose 
subject was "Herodotus," whose aim was to point out the 
value of the Greek writer as a model to modern historians. 
The Times, for the moment laying aside its habitual attack on 
the then Liberal government, devoted its main leader to 



58 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

Herodotus — to his merits and the lessons he conveyed to the 
European writers. The article was a remarkable blending of 
scholarship and good sense, and I ended the day with the reflec- 
tion of what a space in the world's history Herodotus tilled, 
himself describing the work of twenty-five hundred years 
before his own time and being dilated on in 1894 by one of 
the most modern of nineteenth-century newspapers. 

It is generally agreed, I think, that Thucydides is first in 
order of time of philosophic historians, but it does not seem 
to me that we have most to learn from him in the philosophic 
quality. The tracing of cause and effect, the orderly sequence 
of events, will certainly be better developed by moderns than 
it has been by ancients. The influence of Darwin and the 
support and proof which he gives to the doctrine of evolu- 
tion furnish a training of thought which was impossible to 
the ancients; but Thucydides has digested his material and 
compressed his narrative without taking the life out of his 
story in a manner to make us despair, and this does not, 1 
take it, come from paucity of materials. A test which I 
began to make as a study in style has helped me in estimating 
the solidity of a writer. Washington Irving formed his style 
by reading attentively from time to time a page of Addison 
and then, closing the book, endeavored to write out the same 
ideas in his own words. In this way his style became assimi- 
lated to that of the great English essayist, I have tried the 
same mode with several writers. I found that the plan suc- 
ceeded with Macaulay and with Lecky. I tried it again and 
again with Shakespeare and Hawthorne, but if I succeeded in 
writing out the paragraph I found that it was because I mem- 
orized their very words. To write out their ideas in my own 
language I found impossible. I have had the same result 
with Thucydides in trying to do this with his description of 
the plague in Athens. Now, I reason from this in the case 
of Shakespeare and Thucydides that their thought is so con- 
cise they themselves got rid of all redundancies; hence to 
effect the reproduction of their ideas in any but their own 
language is practically impossible. 

It is related of Macaulay, somewhere in his Life and Letters, 
that in a moment of despair, when he instituted a comparison 
between his manuscript and the work of Thucydides, he 
thought of throwing his manuscript into the fire. I suspect 



CONCERNING THE WRITING OF HISTORY. 59 

that Macaulay had not the knack of discarding material on 
which he had spent time and effort, seeing how easily such 
events glowed under his picturesque pen. This is one reason 
why he is prolix in the last three volumes. The first two, 
which begin with the famous introductory chapter and con- 
tinue the storv through the revolution of 1688 to the accession 
of William and Mary, seem to me models of historical com- 
position so far as arrangement, orderly method, and liveliness 
of narration go. Another defect of Macaulay is that, while 
he was an omnivorous reader and had a prodigious memory, 
he was not given to long-continued and profound reflection. 
He read and rehearsed his reading in memory, but he did not 
give himself to "deep, abstract meditation" and did not sur- 
render himself to "the fruitful leisures of the spirit." Take 
this instance of Macaulay's account of a journey: "The 
express train reached Holly head about 1 in the evening," 
he writes. "I read between London and Bangor the lives 
of the emperors from Maximin to Carinas, inclusive, in the 
Augustine history, and was greatly amused and interested." 
On board the ship: "I put on my greatcoat and sat on deck 
during the whole voyage. As I could not read, I used an 
excellent substitute for reading. 1 went through Paradise 
Lost in my head. I could still repeat half of it, and that the 
best half. I really never enjoyed it so much." In Dublin: 
"The rain was so heavy that I was forced to come back in a 
covered car. While in this detestable vehicle I looked rapidly 
through the correspondence between Pliny and Trajan and 
thought that Trajan made a most creditable figure." Macaulay 
did not digest his knowledge well. Yet in reading his Life 
and Letters you know that you are in company with a man 
who read many books and } 7 ou give faith to Thackeray's 
remark, "Macaulay reads twenty books to write a sentence; 
he travels a hundred miles to make a line of description." It 
is a matter of regret that the progress of historical criticism 
and the scientific teaching of history have had the tendency to 
drive Macaulay out of the fashion with students, and I know 
not whether the good we used to get out of him thirty-five 
years ago can now be had. For I seem to miss something 
that we historical students had a generation ago — and that is 
enthusiasm for the sub j ect. The enthusiasm that we then had — 
the desire to compass all knowledge, the wish to gather the 



60 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

fruits of learning and la} r them devoutly at the feet of our 
chosen muse — this enthusiasm we owed to Macaulay and to 
Buckle. Quite properly, no one reads Buckle now, and 1 can 
not gainsaj^ what John Morley said of Macaulay. " Macaulay 
seeks truth," wrote Morley, "not as she should be sought, 
devoutly, tentatively, with the air of one touching the hem of 
a sacred garment, but clutching her by the hair of the head 
and dragging her after him in a kind of boisterous triumph, 
a prisoner of war and not a goddess." It is, nevertheless, 
true that Macaulay and Buckle imparted a new interest to 
history. 

I have spoken of the impression we get of Macaulay through 
reading his Life and Letters. Of Carlyle, in reading the 
remarkable biography of him, we get the notion of a great 
thinker as well as a great reader. He was not as keen and 
diligent in the pursuit of material as Macaulay. He did not 
like to work in libraries; he wanted every book he used in his 
own study — padded as it was against the noises which drove 
him wild. H. Morse Stephens relates that Carlyle did not 
use a collection of documents relating to the French Revolu- 
tion in the British Museum for the reason that the museum 
authorities would not have a special room reserved for him 
where he might study. 1 Rather than work in a room with 
other people, he neglected this valuable material. But Carlyle 
has certainly digested and used his material well. His French 
Revolution seems to approach the historical works of the clas- 
sics in there being so much in a little space. " With the gift 
of song," Lowell said, " Carlyle would have been the greatest 
of epic poets since Homer;" and he also writes, Carlyle's 
historical compositions are no more history than the historical 
plays Shakespeare. 

The contention between the scientific historians and those 
who hold to the old models is interesting and profitable. One 
may enjoy the controversy and derive benefit from it without 
taking sides. 1 suspect that there is truth in the view of both. 
We may be sure that the long-continued study and approval 
by scholars of many ages of the works of Herodotus, Thu- 
cydides, and Tacitus implies historical merit on their part in 
addition to literary art. It is, however, interesting to note 

1 But see Froude's account. Life of Carlyle, vol. 2, p. 363. 



■ ■ 



CONCERNING THE WRITING: OF HISTORY. 61 

the profound difference between President Woolsey's opinion 
of Thucydides and that of some of his late German critics. 
Woolsey said, "I have such confidence in the absolute truth- 
fulness of Thucydides that were he really chargeable with 
folly, as Grote alleges [in the affair of Amphipolis], I believe 
he would have avowed it." On the other hand, one German 
critic, cited by Holm, says that Thucydides is a poet who 
invents facts partly in order to teach people how things 
ought to be done and partly because he liked to depict certain 
scenes of horror. He says further, a narrative of certain 
occurrences is so full of impossibilities that it must be pure 
invention on the part of the historian. Another German 
maintains that Thucydides has indulged in "a fanciful and 
half-romantic picture of events." But Holm, whom the 
scientific historians claim as one of their own, says, "Thu 
cydides still remains a trustworthy historical authoruVy ; " and, 
"On the whole, therefore, the old view that he is a truthful 
writer is not in the least shaken." Again Holm writes: 
"Attempts have been made to convict Thucj^dides of serious 
inaccuracies, but without success. On the other hand, the 
writer of this work [that is, the scientific historian, Holm], is 
able to state that he has followed him topographically for the 
greater part of the sixth and seventh books — and conse- 
quently for nearly one-fourth of the whole history — and has 
found that the more carefully his words are weighed and the 
more accurately the ground is studied the clearer both the 
text and events become, and this is certainhy high praise." 
Holm and Percy Gardner, both of whom have the modern 
method and have studied diligently the historical evidence 
from coins and inscriptions, placed great reliance on Herod- 
otus. Compare the attitude of scholars to Plutarch and Polyb- 
ius, whose merits are contrary, with their attitude towards 
Herodotus, Thucydides, and Tacitus. The last three are taken 
as models of historical composition, but for such a standing 
Plutarch and Polybius have no advocates. 

The sifting of time settles the reputations of historians. 
Of the English of the eighteenth century only one historian 
has come down to us as worthy of serious study. Time is 
wasted in reading Hume and Robertson as models, and no one 
goes to them for facts. But thirty years ago no course of his- 
torical reading was complete without Hume. In this century 



62 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

the sifting process goes on. One has not lost much if he has 
not read Alison's History of Europe. But he was much in 
vogue in the '50s. Harper's Magazine published a part of 
his history as a serial. His rounded periods and bombastic 
utterances were quoted with delight by those who thought 
that history was not history unless it was bombastic. Emer- 
son says somewhere, "Avoid adjectives; let your nouns do the 
work." There was hardly a sentence in Alison which did not 
traverse this rule. One of his admirers told me that the great 
merit of his st}de was his choiceness and aptness in his use of 
adjectives. It is a style which now provokes merriment, and 
had Alison been learned and impartial, and had he possessed 
a good method, his style for the present taste would have 
killed his book. Gibbon is sometimes called pompous, but 
place him by the side of Alison and what one may have pre- 
viously called pompousness one now calls dignity. 

Two of the literary historians of our century survive — Car- 
lyle and Macaulay. They may be read with care. We may 
do as Cassius said Brutus did to him, observe all their faults, 
set them in a notebook, learn and con them by rote; never- 
theless we shall get good from them. Oscar Browning said — I 
am quoting H. Morse Stephens again — of Carlyle's description 
of the flight of the king to Varennes, that in every one of his 
details where a writer could go wrong, Carlyle had gone 
wrong; but added that, although all the details were wrong, 
Carlyle's account is essentially accurate. No defense, I think, 
can be made of Carlyle's statement that Marat was a "blear- 
eyed dog leech," and those statements from which you get 
the distinct impression that the complexion of Robespierre 
was green; nevertheless, everyone who studies the French 
Revolution reads Carlyle, and he is read because the reading- 
is profitable. The battle descriptions in Carlyle's Frederick 
the Great are well worth reading. How refreshing the} 7 are 
after technical descriptions! Carlyle said once, ""Battles since 
Homer's time, when they were nothing but fighting mobs, 
have ceased to be worth reading about," but he made the 
modern battle interesting. 

Macaulay is an honest partisan. You learn very soon how 
to take him, and when distrust begins one has correctives in 
Gardiner and Ranke. Froude is much more dangerous. His 
splendid narrative style does not compensate for his inaccu- 
racies. Langlois makes an apt quotation from Froude. "We 



CONCERNING THE WRITING OF HISTORY. 63 

saw," says Froude, of the city of Adelaide, in Australia, 
"below us in a basin, with the river winding through it, a 
city of 150,000 inhabitants, none of whom has ever known or 
ever will know one moment's anxiety as to the recurring 
regularity of three meals a day." Now for the facts. Lang- 
lois says: "Adelaide is built on an eminence; no river runs 
through it. When Froude visited it the population did not 
exceed 75,000, and it was suffering from a famine at the time." 
Froude was curious in his inaccuracies. He furnished the 
data which convict him of error. He quoted inaccurately 
the Simancas manuscripts and deposited correct copies in the 
British Museum. Carlyle and Macaulay are honest partisans 
and you know how to take them, but for constitutional inac- 
curacy such as Froude's no allowance can be made. 

Perhaps it may be said of Green that he combines the 
merits of the scientific and literary historian. He has written 
an honest and artistic piece of work. But he is not infallible. 
I have been told on good authority that in his reference to 
the Thirty Years' War he has hardly stated a single fact cor- 
rectly, yet the general impression you get from his account 
is correct. Stubbs and Gardiner are preeminently the scien- 
tific historians of England. Of Stubbs, from actual knowl- 
edge, I regret that I can not speak, but the reputation he has 
among historical experts is positive proof of his great value. 
Of Gardiner I can speak with knowledge. Anyone who 
desires to write history will do well to read every line Gardi- 
ner has wi t<en — not the text alone, but also the notes. It is 
an admirals. ..... idy in method which will bear important fruit. 

But because Gibbon, Gardiner, and Stubbs should be one's 
chief reliance, it does not follow that one may neglect Macau- 
lay, Carlyle, Tacitus, Thuc3 r dides, and Herodotus. Gardiner 
himself has learned much from Macaulay and Carlyle. All 
of them may be criticised on one point or another, but they 
all have lessons for us. 

We shall all agree that the aim of history writing is to get 
at the truth and express it as clearly as possible. The differ- 
ences crop out when we begin to elaborate our meaning. 
"This I regard as the historian's highest function," writes 
Tacitus, " to let no worthy action be uncommemorated, and to 
hold out the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words 
and deeds;" while Langlois and the majority of the scholars of 
Oxford are of the opinion that the formation and expression 



64 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

of ethical judgments, the approval or condemnation of Julius 
Caesar or of Ceesar Borgia, is not a thing within the histo- 
rian's province. Let the controversy go on ! It is well worth 
one's while to read the presentations of the subject from the 
different points of view. But infallibility will nowhere be 
found. Mommsen and Curtius in their detailed investigations 
received applause from those who adhered rigidly to the 
scientific view of history, but when they addressed the public 
in their endeavor, it is said, to produce an effect upon it, the}' 
relaxed their scientific rigor; hence such a chapter as Cur- 
tius's " Years of peace," and in another place his transmuting 
a conjecture of Grote into an assertion; hence Mommsen's 
effusive panegyric of Caesar. If Mommsen did depart from 
the scientific rules, I suspect that it came from no desire of a 
popular success, but rather from the enthusiasm of much 
learning. The examples of Curtius and Mommsen show 
probably that such a departure from strict impartiality is 
inherent in the writing of general history, and it comes, I 
take it, naturally and unconsciously. Holm is a scientific 
historian, but on the Persian Invasion he writes: " I have fol- 
lowed Herodotus in many passages which are unauthenticated 
and probably even untrue, because he reproduces the popular 
traditions of the Greeks." And again: " History in the main 
ought only to be a record of facts, but now and then the histo- 
rian may be allowed to display a certain interest in his subject. " 
These expressions traverse the canons of scientitic history as 
much as the sayings of the ancient historiographers themselves. 
But because men have warm sympathies that cause them 
to color their narratives shall no more general histories be 
written? Shall history be confined to the printing of original 
documents and to the publication of learned monographs in 
which the discussion of authorities is mixed up with the rela- 
tion of events? The proper mental attitude of the general 
historian is to take no thought of popularity. The remark of 
Macaulay that he would make his history take the place of the 
last novel on my lady's table is not scientific. The audience 
which the general historian should have in mind is that of 
historical experts — men who are devoting their lives to the 
study of history. Words of approval from them are worth 
more than any popular recognition, for theirs is the enduring 
praise. Their criticism should be respected; there should be 



CONCERNING THE WRITING OF HISTORY. 65 

never-ceasing work to avoid giving them cause for fault-find- 
ing. No labor should be despised which shall enable one to 
present things just as they are. Our endeavor should be to 
think straight and see clear. A circumstance should not be 
related on insufficient evidence because it is interesting, but 
an affair well attested should not be discarded because it hap- 
pens to have a human interest. I feel quite sure that the 
cardinal aim of Gardiner was to be accurate and to proportion 
his story well. In this he has succeeded; but it is no draw- 
back that he has made his volumes interesting. Jacob D. 
Cox, who added to other accomplishments that of being learned 
in the law, and who Looked upon Gardiner with such reverence 
that he called him the Chief Justice, said there was no reason 
why he should read novels, as he found Gardiner's history 
more interesting than any romance. The scientific historians 
have not revolutionized historical methods, but they have 
added much. The process of accretion has been going on 
since, at any rate, the time of Herodotus, and the canons for 
weighing evidence and the sjmthesis of materials are better 
understood now than ever before, for they have been reduced 
from many models. I feel sure that there has been a growth 
in candor. Compare the critical note to a later edition which 
Macaulay wrote in 1857, maintaining the truth of his charge 
against William Penn, with the manly way in which Gardiner 
owns up when an error or insufficient evidence for a statement 
is pointed out. It is the ethics of the profession to be forward 
in correcting errors. The difference between the old and the 
new lies in the desire to have men think you are infallible and 
the desire to be accurate. 

H. Doc. 548, pt 1 5 



